We reported earlier in the week that VW is looking at expanding the R range of models in the future following the great success of the New VW Golf R.

Head of powertrain development at VW, Dr Heinz-Jakob Neusser said that it was possible to make an ‘R’ variant for nearly every model in the range but stressed that commercial viability would determine which ‘R’ models would make it to production.

New VW Golf GTD R could be a possibility

Volkswagen’s Hanno Jelden, in an interview withMotoring,said that the new 176 kW / 500 Nm 2.0-litre TDI biturbo engine for the VW Passat could be used in the Golf. However, he made it clear that “the issue is that is it the heaviest engine currently used in the [MQB] platform.”

Although nothing has been confirmed for sure, the most likely candidates for ‘R’ treatment would be the Polo and the Passat. In the Passat however, this 2.0-litre biturbo TDI is mated to a seven-speed DSG transmission which results in a 0-100 kph sprint time of 6.1 seconds before topping out at 240 kph.

Either way, we will just have to wait and see what the final decision is from VW, but looking at the new VW Golf R, we can only have confidence that future R models will be very special indeed.